The present invention relates to ski racks, and more particularly to ski racks including means for releasably securing the skis within the racks.
A wide variety of ski racks have been developed to store skis when not in use. Some known racks are specially adapted for supporting skis for transportation on an automotive vehicle as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,854,641, entitled ARTICLE CARRIER FOR RECREATIONAL VEHICLES, issued Dec. 17, 1974, to Kohls; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,242,704, entitled SKI RACKS, issued Mar. 29, 1966, to Barreca. Typcially, these vehicle racks are not suitable for use in a building interior because of the difficulty of mounting these racks on a vertical support surface such as a building wall. Second, the structure required to adequately support the skis during transportation is excessively strong and consequently expensive for a rack intended for interior use.
Other ski racks have been developed for stationarily supporting skis as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,685,667, entitled HOLDER APPARATUS FOR SKIS, issued Aug. 22, 1972, to Bell; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,164,256, entitled WATER SKI DISPLAY RACK, issued Jan 5, 1965, to Bennett. Typically, these stationary racks include a lower horizontal support member, upon which the lower ends of the skis are supported, and an upper horizontal support bar, vertically offset from the lower horizontal support bar and against which skis lean when supported on the rack. These stationary ski racks require excessive floor space, particularly when in a building interior, and consequently are unsuited for interior use, especially homes, where space is at a premium. Second, these racks either (1) include relatively complicated and costly securing mechanisms as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,685,667 or (2) do not include any securing mechanism as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,164,256 in which case the skis are often inadvertently knocked off the racks. Therefore, known stationary racks are excessively large, complicated, and/or costly.